How Kabbalistically accurate is the golem-making procedure described in "Niflaos Maharal"?

Question

There's been plenty of discussion about the historic authenticity of "Niflaos Maharal", a book that appeared in the early 1900s describing how the Maharal made a Golem to defend the Jews against blood libels.

My question isn't authenticity; it's accuracy. Has anyone compared the description of Golem-making found in Niflaos Maharal with, say, the procedure found in Sefer Yetzira?

Sure enough, Niflaos Maharal is available online; check out Chapter 8 for the description of how the Golem was made. (This corresponds to the English-language legends I'd seen as a child.) It talks about how the Maharal himself fit the element of air, and the Golem was made of earth (actually "dust"), so he brought along one student who was fire and one who was water.

Is something like the four-element-people thing found in classical kabbalistic texts on Golems, or unique to Niflaos Maharal?

Answer 1

While Sefer Yetzirah does give a basic outline in creating a Golem(though arguably that is not the primary purpose of those parts), it does not give a specific formula. Much of that is relegated to the commentaries, and even there the procedure is patchy at best.

The most detailed instructions can be found in the commentaries of Avraham Abulafia and an until recently unpublished commentary by Rabbi Haim Vital. Notably both of those differ in specifics. That seems to be down to a basic difference in shita.

There is no certainty as to which version of the Sefer Yetzirah that was used by the Maharal. There are textual varients. There is one that the Gra had, there is one that the Ramak had(mostly the main text published under that title). There is the one that Abulafia had, and there is the one that R' Haim Vital claims to have recieved as accurate from the Arizal. Aryeh Kaplan for instance published five versions of the text in his work on the subject, and at that point the texts of Abulafia were unpublished, and the text of Haim Vital was as yet undiscovered.

The basic story of the Maharal is accurate to what is revealed explicitly in the Sefer Yetzirah. The Shem Gedolim of the Hida reports that the Maharal created a golem and that he was a Kabbalistic master. However I doubt that the story is explicit in all of the details of making a Golem.

Four element people is a classic Kabbalistic idea found within sefer Yetzirah and other Kabbalistic texts. It isn't just Golems, but complete creatures(humans) in general. Animals are tri-elemental, plants bi-elemental and rocks... well you get the idea.

Answer 2

Sefer yetsirah defenitely does play a big role in the aspect of the golem, but it is more than that.

one would have to be a master of the entire pardes--(pshat remes drash and sod) to fully "create" as the great sages were.

one would have to know the sod of the letters with a heart thats pure and have fear of heaven.

Answer 3

As far as I have learned over the years one should be really careful in interpreting, if not fully understanding, the underlying principles of how the sages spoke to us concerning the core principles of mysticism. Ask yourself, is the Golem in those writings literal? On the same context as the Golem, were the created calf for eating literal animals? If it is, if it is not, what moral and spiritual implications do those teach us? It's up for you to understand but most of the time those writings go beyond what is written in black and white.